End of MP3 Blog Post

Intention Definition & Exploration of Ideas:

    The concepts I chose to follow in my animation are Nature and Looking Outward. This combination is about looking around in our everyday lives and finding that nature is there everywhere we go, throughout our whole lives. No matter how old you are, we all experience nature in some of the same ways. We all watch the snow fall outside of our window in the winter. We see the leaves fall from the sky during a walk in autumn. We feel the wind as we roll our car windows down in the summer. And we watch as colorful flowers bloom as spring rolls around. That is why decided to try and capture that experience in my project. One of the reasons why I chose to do this theme is because I have been inspired by how nature looks in digital art, film, and games. For example, I have played the game "Legend of Zelda, Breath of the Wild," and I love how they incorporated nature into the open-world landscape. They have trees everywhere, they have mountains, bushes, lakes, and so much more. All of the nature in the game adds so much to the experience and makes it more enjoyable. They are not just for the looks either, you can interact with each of them, and it makes the game feel more like real life. So overall, I really liked the idea of Nature and looking Outward, and the meaning it entails.

Planning: 

For my planning, I followed some tutorials, used reference images, and utilized my blog posts to prepare for time in class. For tutorials, I watched a few refresher videos on how to create landscapes by sculpting. They went over how to set up the plane for sculpting, and also the different types of landscapes you could make. I also plan to use a tutorial that I found to add grass to the landscape I make. I already followed the grass tutorial once, but I decided to wait to add it in until I had completed all the texturing and animation. In preparation for animating the leaf that will fall from the tree, I found a reference photo that I did end up using for my animation. I also used my weekly blog posts to plan out and experiment with the things I would be doing in class. For example, I experimented with what skin texture I wanted on the hand in one of my blog posts. In the experiment I did a swatch of each texture on the hand and figured out which one I wanted.

Producing: 

This marking period I finished animating the leaf falling, the hand closing on the leaf, and the camera. I also textured the hand, and started creating the landscape.

Evaluating: 

Looking back at what I have accomplished this marking period, I pretty happy with what I was able to get done. I finished all the animation, including the camera and hand animation. I like how the leaf animation came out, and even though it took up most of my time during this marking period, I think it came out looking pretty smooth. I definitely had to remind myself how to do the timing part of animation correctly and it took a couple of tries to get it right, but I eventually figured it out. The hardest part of animating the leaf was figuring out how to make the leaf fall realistically. I did this by making it move faster on the declines, and slow down when it reaches the turns. I was also able to animate the camera, but I might tweak it later if I decide to. This marking period I also textured and animated the hand. The bones on the hand were a little fidgety since I got the model off of blend swap, but I managed to make it work. Like I said, I am decently happy with my progress, and I think I have gotten good amount of progress done. Earlier, I was hoping that I would be done with my animation by now, but I am pretty close to being done. In the end I think it was a good call to not stress my self out and try to squeeze in the rest of my project into this marking period.

Integrating: 

Moving forward, I want to make sure I am being intentional with my time in class. I don't have that much more left in my project, but it is possible that rendering and the editing afterwards might take longer than I anticipated. If finishing the project is taking too long, I might have to work outside of class. Hopefully that doesn't happen, it might be a possibility. Also, if I get a chance to start another project, I want to switch over to graphic design.